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How to NOT Talk to Your Children About the Sex They Are Having

Earlier this week my friend called to tell me her teenage son is sexually active. I am currently busy scrubbing this information from my brain. Unlike the Pythagorean Theorem it is deeply etched and I’m having a hard time unhearing it.

Her son is almost 18 and in a relationship with a girl he loves. The issue isn’t the sex, the issue is the fact that she knows about it when she shouldn’t. Her son came to his father to talk about birth control and the fact that he’d had sex for the first time. This 17 year old almost-man asked his father to please keep his secret and not tell his mother. The father told the mother. The mother told me, we are all squicked out (that’s the medical term for it).

Last night I was laying in bed with Mr. G and gave him the rundown and he just looked at me like this

And I kept talking because sometimes when he’s got that look I figure I’ve dug half the hole, why not the whole six feet?

He interrupted and said, “Why are you telling me this?” And I was like, “Because one day Jane is going to tell me something and ask me to keep it a secret from you and I’m going to keep the secret.” And he just sort of did this

And gave me a thumbs up and then started waving like an air traffic controller trying to get me to stop talking.

Pro tip: never talk to your husband about teenage sexuality while you are also in bed. There’s something so hideously creepy about it that I’m actually considering buying new bed linens.

I’d mentioned to my friend that kids are entitled to some privacy and that around sex stuff when it’s all age appropriate (we aren’t talking about 14 year olds here) then having the communication with just one parent is fine. There are things I don’t want to know about each of my kids. I’m entitled to not know, right?

My question to you is this. If you child comes to you to talk about their sexual activity and asks you not to tell your spouse do you honor that request?